


Iron Fist: My Life As A Weapon

by FloriaTosca



Series: It's Hard to be a Saint in the City [1]
Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Broad Strokes, Dogs, Dramedy, Gen, Martial Arts, Ninja, Non-Graphic Violence, Pacific Northwest, Slice of Life, Urban Fantasy, a gratuitous cameo, awful rich people, because tea is delicious, don't expect meticulous adherence to canon is what i'm saying, gratuitous tea references, original old lady character, original worldbuilding, racebent character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-10-23 18:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10725015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloriaTosca/pseuds/FloriaTosca
Summary: Like a lot of young adults out on their own for the first time, Danny Rand has discovered that years of intense but specialized training don't necessarily fully equip you for the more complex and multifaceted challenges of real life.  Unlike most people his age in his situation, Danny Rand was raised in a mystical mountain monastery and can punch through walls.  Which, perhaps unsurprisingly, only makes his life more complicated.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I found the lackluster reviews of "Iron Fist" weirdly inspiring. Writing about a flawless icon, you can get caught up worrying about messing things up and failing to capture the magic of the original. When your inspiration is not a masterpiece, you feel freer to experiment. So this is my own take on the "orphaned child of American billionaires learns magical kung-fu in a Shangri-La monastery, goes back to America, punches stuff" premise, exploring some of the other possibilities of the idea. I'm not claiming to be better than the tv show, just different. 
> 
> Setting change: most of this story takes place in the Puget Sound region of Washington State, for two reasons. First, there aren't a lot of superhero stories set in the Pacific Northwest, and second, I'm a lot more familiar with this part of the country than I am with New York, and I wanted the story to have a strong sense of place and authenticity.
> 
> I visualize this version of Danny looking rather like early-2010s Osric Chau and describe him accordingly, but if you prefer a different Asian!Danny fancast, feel free to picture him as your fave. Tenzing is not exactly a normal dog, but most closely resembles a large Tibetan Terrier. Other characters look like their Netflix-series selves unless noted.

**Monastery of the Crane Mother, K’un-Lun, 2015**

“The Hand’s on the move.”

“Anywhere we need to worry about?”

“Not immediately, no. My intelligence says that they are concentrating on American coastal cities.”

“Really? I thought that gweilo ninja boy kicked them out?”

“You don’t understand how big America is, do you? And ‘that gweilo ninja boy’ barely has them under control in his own hometown.”

“Why don’t the Chaste send someone to help, then? They like running around and crusading so damn much.”

“It appears they have. But that leaves the West Coast completely unprotected.”

“Why is this K’un-Lun’s business?”

“Because it might be a sign that the Hand’s tactics are changing. This city they’re setting up shop in is _nothing_ by American standards, but it’s on the Pacific coast and it has a port. I believe they want more exchange of resources and personnel between the high command back in Japan and their American operations.”

“Clearly, this is a job for the mighty K’un-Lun navy.”

“Pity that we’re landlocked.”

“Do you think the Chaste could spare someone to investigate? I know they’d be insufferable about it, but this might be worth it.”

“Unfortunately, the Chaste don’t have the personnel to spare at present.”

“Kamar-Taj?”

“The sorcerers will start caring when the Hand resurrect so many people that it upsets the metaphysical balance of life and death. Or if they ever actually succeed at digging that hole to the underworld. Or if somebody’s favorite tea shop, rare book dealer, or purveyor of tacky occult jewelry gets caught in the crossfire. But not a moment sooner.”

“We could send Danny Rand. He speaks English and he’s familiar with American culture.”

“Are you sure he’s up to it?”

“The kid fought a dragon. He can look after himself.”

“That’s not what I was worried about.”

“A little independence could do him good. It will be a growth experience.”

“Heaven knows he needs one.”

* * *

 

_Danny Rand._ Sometimes Lei Kung worried about that boy. He shouldn’t have needed to: Danny was talented, hard-working, had no outstanding vices except for a certain innate goofiness inappropriate for a master martial artist, and always tried his best. _Did he ever_. Lei Kung fondly remembered the sight of Danny as a child, his little face furrowed in concentration as he tried to meditate _as hard as he could_. But that eager, driving, helpful earnestness that was so endearing in a child and entirely appropriate for a student was a little sad and not entirely becoming in a grown man and living weapon. And Danny was a grown man, even if he looked sixteen and acted ten sometimes.

Lei Kung briefly wondered if Danny might have grown up more self-assured if he’d cut the boy a little slack, but dismissed the thought. Danny had been an outsider to K’un-Lun with a lot of catching up to do: pushing him as hard as he could handle had been the fastest way to get Danny on the same level as the other boys his age. And was it really such a bad thing, for Danny to have high expectations for himself? It wasn’t as if the Hand took mental health days.


	2. Water Sprite

K’un-Lun didn’t get a lot of visitors, but the Order of the Crane Mother’s librarian was good friends with the librarian of Kamar-Taj, and they frequently met to drink tea, play weiqi, and discuss esoteric volumes. This may, _technically_ , have been against monastery regulations, but since the Librarian was one of the most learned scholars of martial lore in K’un-Lun, and also eight feet tall and capable of ripping a man’s arm off without using qigong, the other masters respected his choice of how to spend his free time.

(While the Librarian was unusual in his affiliation with a human organization, yeti scholars and martial artists are not rare. Yeti culture places great emphasis on the pursuit of mental and physical self-perfection, since there isn’t much else to do on top of a mountain.)

Since the Librarian’s sorcerer friend owed him a favor, this meant that Danny could go straight to America via magical portal - the most efficient travel method known to human-or-yeti-kind - and the Librarian didn’t have to try to forge a passport with the monastery’s calligraphy materials.

Danny and Tenzing stepped through the portal into the back room of some kind of shop. Even if he hadn’t been told, Danny would have known he was back in America. The buzz of commercial lighting, the hum of central heating, the toasted-dust smell that said someone had vacuumed recently - and the air felt so _thick_ , too, after years in the mountains. A middle-aged black lady in sorcerer’s robes and big plastic-rimmed glasses smiled and looked at him in a friendly but scrutinizing way. “So, you’re the new champion?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Danny Rand.”

“Damn, they’re getting younger every year. If I didn’t know better I’d swear it was time magic. Well, anyway. Pleased to meet you. I’m Master Lillian McDonald. I look after the occult well-being of the greater Seattle-Tacoma area. We’re not important enough for a Sanctum Sanctorum so I operate out of my tea shop.” Danny looked around and noticed that he was surrounded by shelves full of big jars and drawers labeled with things like “Regrettable Rooibos” and “Humorous Pu-Erh Bricks.” 

“I see, ma’am.”

“And who’s the dog?”

“This is Tenzing. He’s a K’un-Lun temple dog. Say hello, Tenzing.” Tenzing trotted up to Master Lillian and bowed.

“What a good dog,” said Master Lillian. “So, anyway, I guess I’m the welcoming committee. I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you much time, because there’s a rift opening under the edge of the Juan de Fuca plate right now that I need to monitor to make sure it doesn’t turn into a _Pacific Rim_ situation.” Danny looked at her blankly. “Sorry. You ever seen _Godzilla_?” Danny nodded. “That kind of thing, except the monsters came from another dimension.”

“But I put together a little ‘Welcome to Tacoma’ kit for you,” Master Lillian continued. “Bus pass, burner phone and charger, pocket first aid kit, guidebook and maps, helpful brochures, reuseable water bottle, comb, collapsible umbrella, and protein bars. And word to the wise,” she continued, “The little shop near the food court that does all the personalized coffee mugs and stuff also makes pretty good fake identification. Ask for the personalized business cards. Tell ‘em Lillian sent you and they’ll give you a discount.”

Lillian and Danny were interrupted by a younger woman - presumably one of Lillian’s employees - coming in from the front of the shop. “Ma’am, we’ve got another ‘I hate green tea but I drink it because it’s healthy’ customer,” she said. “What should I suggest?”

“Coconut pouchong,” Lillian said, without missing a beat. “It’s with the light oolongs.”

“Thanks, boss,” the young woman said, as she darted to the cupboard, grabbed a bag of tea, and dashed out again.

“My employees all know that I am an occult practitioner,” Lillian said, “Although none of them know the full implications. So you don’t need to keep your mouth shut around them to maintain the Masquerade or anything.”

“That’s good to know, ma’am.”

“The phone has my number saved in it already,” Lillian continued. “Feel free to call me if you have any questions. I probably won’t be able to get back to you right away, but I will try to help you when I have the free time. And you can always come in for a free cup of tea.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Danny said. He and Tenzing both bowed. Master Lillian smirked at them, not unkindly, and showed them out the door.

After Danny acquired his new fake ID (as “Danny Rand,” because why complicate things with unnecessary layers of deceit), as well as a collar and tag for Tenzing (because he belatedly remembered that Animal Control was a thing in America and he didn’t want to risk Tenzing getting mistaken for a stray), he filled up his water bottle, split a piece of yak jerky with his dog, and left the confines of the little indoor mall to explore the Big City.

The noise and the cold rain hit Danny like a punch to the face, which was shortly followed by a literal punch as Danny was ambushed by two ninja jumping out at him from a parking garage. At least Danny assumed they were ninja. They wore American street clothes and one of them was white, but they moved like ninja, and not bad ones, either. They didn’t confuse “fighting in a coordinated way” with “predictable symmetrical fight choreography,” so Danny had to keep track of two fast-moving people operating independently. The ninja in red focused more on punches and kicks, and the one in green on throws and leg sweeps, but once Danny got used to their pattern, they switched it up. One on one, they wouldn’t have given Danny any trouble at all, but as it was, there was one awkward moment with a knife that could have gone very badly if Danny hadn’t had Tenzing backing him up. 

But eventually, the powers of fifteen years of intensive high-altitude martial arts training prevailed, and Danny got both his opponents KO’d. He disarmed them and dragged them off to a discreet corner of the parking garage complex so they wouldn’t get run over or stepped on and he could rifle through their pockets in peace. Before Danny got a chance, Tenzing sniffed both the unconscious ninja thoroughly, and then, satisfied that neither of them were carrying anything edible, sat down to keep a lookout.

“No wallets,” Danny said. “No identification. Burner phones-” the same kind of cheap smartphone Danny had been given, as a matter of fact - “But they’re locked.” Danny tried a few plausible number combinations - 1234, 368, 666, 108 - but no luck. “Darnit, Tenzing, I’m a monk, not a hacker!” The ninja were carrying a little cash - about fifty dollars each, in miscellaneous small bills - and wore very nice jackets that looked a lot more rain-proof than Danny’s sweater. Danny swiped the green jacket - he was aware that red was better at not showing bloodstains, but green was his favorite color - their knives, and most of the money, but left the ninjas their phones, their shoes, and a couple dollars each for bus fare.

As Danny snuck out of the parking garage, he wondered if it counted as mugging someone if _they_ were the ones who had picked a fight with _you_. And if the ninja came back and apologized and told him that there had been a terrible case of mistaken identity and they’d confused him for one of their enemies, would Danny be morally obligated to give the jacket and the money back? All those lectures about the Way of the Warrior back at the monastery and they’d never covered questions like this. 

“Okay, Tenzing,” Danny said, “Where do we go from here?” Tenzing boofed softly and began wandering downhill. “Sure! Downtown seems as good as anywhere.” He fished out one of the maps that Master Lillian had given him and traced his finger along it thoughtfully. “And it says that the big library’s down there. That’s always a good place to go when you have no idea what you’re doing.” Tenzing had no problem with that, so off they went.

Tenzing, who to an outside observer resembled a thirty-pound mop on legs, was completely unbothered by the rain, and trotted along cheerfully, splashing through the puddles. Danny, who to an outside observer resembled an athletic young East Asian man of slightly below-average height, was having considerably less fun. It wasn’t the rain as such - he had a jacket and an umbrella, and you couldn’t progress far in K’un-Lunan martial arts training if you didn’t have a high tolerance for physical discomfort in any case. And it wasn’t the hills. This was nothing compared to the Kunlun Mountains. It was the rain, plus the hills, plus his stupid _shoes_. Sandals with no tread on the bottom were not made for steep wet sidewalks, and despite his normal sure-footedness, Danny found himself sliding around or on the verge of falling out of his shoes more than once. He eventually just gave up in disgust and stuffed his sandals into his backpack. After all, it wasn’t like his feet could get any wetter at this point.

After Danny’s toes had gone numb, and the rest of him had warmed up from the exercise, Danny found that he was, despite everything, enjoying himself a little. For the first time in years, Danny felt like there were no grumpy old men with sticks breathing down his neck. Of course, he was on a mission, but since he didn’t even know what the real nature of the problem was yet, much less have any kind of plan of attack, Danny felt like he could push that to the background for the moment. Yes, it was a miserable gray rotten day, but spring was coming - Danny could see it in the buds on the cherry trees and smell it in the air. Yes, Danny had been attacked by trained combatants with unknown motives, but he’d handled it, hadn’t he? And now he was a hundred bucks richer and had a sweet new jacket. Things were looking up.


	3. Iron Goddess of Mercy

Colleen first noticed him at the library. He was one of maybe a dozen homeless people enjoying the library’s hospitality, only remarkable at first because Colleen was pretty sure that he was hiding a dog under the table and getting away with it. But he had a kind of gravity to him that Colleen associated with people with strong chi. _So he’s either a superpowered hobo or an eccentric wandering kung fu master_ , Colleen thought. _Which is a more respectable kind of superpowered hobo when you think of it_. When Colleen left, after copying a bunch of local history documents in the Northwest Room, she saw that he had moved to a table near the J Fiction and was deeply absorbed in _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_.

Colleen had a fight that night. Her opponent was this little Canadian woman who was either recovering from the world’s worst case of adolescent cystic acne or had fought a turkey fryer and lost. Colleen found this slightly disappointing, since picking on someone her own size was, in her experience, nowhere near as gratifying as beating the stuffing out of some giant muscular man. But after she got into the ring with the chick, Colleen was swiftly relieved of any delusions that this was going to be an unsatisfyingly easy fight. The girl was legitimately skilled - _spinning back-kick!_ -if less than elegant about it by Colleen’s high standards - _elbow jab!_ \- and aggravatingly unpredictable - _what the hell, was she trying to breakdance?_ But her biggest advantage was that most of Colleen’s tactics were geared toward big dudes, not women who were smaller and faster than she was. Well, that, and the fact that she took a punch like a buckwheat pillow. _Uppercut. Superman punch. Dammit, she should have felt that!_ Colleen wondered if whatever had caused her opponent’s burns - if they were burns - had damaged her perception of pain. But she didn’t _move_ like someone with nerve damage, goddammit.

“Y’know,” the woman said, after nimbly dodging a kick to the head, “I’m a little confused. Why are we doing this? If this was an ‘establish our badass credentials’ fight, we’d be taking on someone bigger and scarier. If this was a fanservice catfight, we’d be wearing sexier outfits.” _Dammit, where did she get her lung power?_ “Only thing I can think of-” she continued, between punches, “is that this is some kind of Chekhov’s Gun setup business and we’re going to be important to each other late-ooph!” The Canadian’s motor mouth didn’t distract her as much as it would with most people, but it gave Colleen enough of an opening to shoot for a takedown. And while the two women were equally matched standing up, Colleen was a notably better grappler.

“That was fun,” the woman said, after tapping out. “Let’s do this again sometime!”

“We’ll see,” Colleen said noncommittally. 

Colleen saw him again the next morning, at the Asia Pacific Cultural Center. Colleen was there because Mrs. Ryu was teaching an ikebana class and the old lady didn’t like to drive on wet days. He was seated in the little reading area in the lobby with a very fluffy medium-sized dog and a stack of informative brochures. He leafed through them, set some aside immediately and skimmed over the rest, sighed, rubbed his forehead, set the whole stack down, and then looked through the whole pile again, as if he were trying to find something he’d missed the last time. “What are you looking for?” Colleen asked.

“It’s a long story,” the young man said. “And I’m not sure you’d believe most of it. But right now I’m just looking for a place to stay and a way to make a little money. Tenzing and I can’t live on yak jerky forever.”

“Have you tried Labor Ready?” Colleen asked.

“What’s that?”

Colleen looked at him incredulously. “Are you a rich kid fallen on hard times, or are you just not from around here?”

The young man smiled awkwardly. “Both, actually. Like I said, it’s a long story. But I’ve been out of the country for a while. I was, uh, studying abroad.”

“ _Fancy_. Where were you? Oxford? Cambridge? The Sorbonne? UTokyo? Seouldae?”

“More like a monastery in the Kunlun Mountains,” he admitted.

“Yeah, I can see how that wouldn’t look too impressive on a job application,” Colleen said sympathetically. “What kind of monastery? Enlightenment or punching?”

“Punching, but like, _enlightened_ punching,” he said. “That’s why I’m here. I thought someone might be doing martial arts classes and looking for an assistant. Oh, I’m Danny Rand, by the way. And this is Tenzing. Say hi, Tenzing.” Tenzing glided up to Colleen - she assumed that the dog had legs under all that fur, but she couldn’t empirically verify the fact - sniffed at her shoes for a moment, and then bobbed a little doggy bow. 

“Hey, buddy,” Colleen said gently. She held out her hand for Tenzing to sniff, and then turned back to his human. “Rand, huh?” Colleen said. “You aren’t an Objectivist, are you?”

“No, miss, I’m a Buddhist.”

“My name’s Colleen. Colleen Wing.” She looked into Danny’s big guileless labrabull-puppy eyes and added, almost in spite of herself, “I might be able to help you, Danny, but I can’t promise anything. There’s some people I need to talk to first.” 

“Thank you so much!” Danny said, bouncing up and down in his chair like an excited kid. 

“Don’t thank me yet, Danny,” Colleen said. “Now, when you were studying at the monastery, did you ever do any manual labor?”

“We had chores,” Danny said.

“Do you know one end of a mop from another?” Colleen asked.

Danny nodded and smiled. “I think I can manage that.”

“Do you have a phone or some other way of getting in touch with you?”

Danny pointed to a small drugstore smartphone charging at one of the outlets.

“Okay, give me your phone number and I’ll let you know when everything’s sorted out. It shouldn’t take too long.”

When Colleen had her phone out to add Danny’s number, she also took a picture of Danny and ran a reverse image search. A girl can’t be too careful these days. She also googled “Danny Rand.” Colleen did not find any escaped axe murderers or level three sex offenders matching Danny’s name or description, but something interesting did come up under Danny’s name. Turned out “Danny Rand” was also the name of a New York billionaire’s kid who had gone missing and presumed dead, with his parents, about fifteen years ago. On a family trip to China. And this Danny Rand was also Asian and, if he had lived to grow up, would be in his mid twenties now. _What are the odds?_

Five years ago, Colleen would have written it off as either a coincidence or, at most, her “Danny” being some kind of con artist. But the Colleen of 2011 had never seen defrosted Captain America running around fighting aliens in New York and arguing with white supremacists on Twitter. The Colleen of 2016 had a much broader sense of possibility. 

_So he’s either kung fu Princess Anastasia_ , Colleen thought, _or a con artist pretending to be kung fu Princess Anastasia, because we live in a world in which this sort of thing isn’t completely unbelievable_. Either way, it wasn’t something she had to worry about. Impersonating a dead guy to prey on grieving relatives was mean-spirited and dishonorable, and she hoped that Danny - whatever his real name was - wouldn’t stoop to it. But impersonating a dead guy to swindle a few million dollars out of a megacorp was - also dishonorable, technically, but Colleen figured that Rand Enterprises was a big company that could look out for itself.

With all that taken care of, Colleen settled down with a book to wait for Mrs. Ryu. Danny went back to his brochures, finally gave up in disgust, and took his own book off the shelf. Tenzing contentedly wandered back and forth, occasionally headbutting Danny or Colleen gently on the kneecap when he wanted attention.

Finally Mrs. Ryu finished her class, and after the bustle of students in the lobby died down, Colleen went to help her clean up. Danny and Tenzing tagged along. “Feel free to make yourself useful,” Colleen said. “We have a lot of chairs to stack.”

Danny did, actually, manage to make himself useful, instead of spending 90% of his time getting underfoot and the other 10% grabbing big bulky things out of Colleen’s arms and then patting himself on the back for his chivalry. “Such a nice young man,” Mrs. Ryu said. She walked over to where Colleen and Danny were putting away a folding table and looked Danny over like she was trying to figure out how he worked. “Colleen,” Mrs. Ryu said, “Introduce me to your new friend.”

“Mrs. Ryu, this is Danny Rand, he’s new in town. Danny, this is Mrs. Ryu, my old sensei.”

Mrs. Ryu looked at Danny sharply over her glasses. “Young man, where did you study?”

“A monastery in Asia.” Mrs. Ryu kept looking at him, clearly expecting more details. “The Order of the Crane Mother. In K’un-Lun.”

Mrs. Ryu smiled nostalgically. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.”

Danny perked up like a kid at the sound of the ice cream truck. “You’ve heard of K’un-Lun? I thought nobody in this country knew about it, except -” he cut himself off and continued “er, nobody.”

“I had an adventurous youth,” Mrs. Ryu said. “I am pleased to meet you, Danny. We will meet again in the future.”

“Pleased to meet you, too, ma’am,” Danny said. 

Mrs. Ryu walked out, Colleen following with the box of flower-arranging supplies. Danny headed back to the lobby, presumably to wait out the rain.

“So,” Colleen said, when the women were in the car. “What did you think of him?”

“I think he’s a good boy,” said Mrs. Ryu.

“That’s encouraging,” Colleen said. “I was thinking of hiring him to clean up at the dojo. I looked him up, but that only tells you if somebody got caught.”

“He is uncorrupted,” said Mrs. Ryu. “Although that isn’t the same as incorruptible. And he has a lot of potential.”

“So you felt it too.”

“People like that bring interesting times wherever they go. It’s a feeling you learn to recognize, after a while.”

“Should I keep my distance?” Colleen asked.

“No point,” Mrs. Ryu said bluntly. “There’s not enough distance to keep, in a town this size. No, I think you should keep an eye on him. Somebody needs to. We don’t want Danny falling in with bad elements, now do we?”

Colleen wasn’t sure what bad elements there were for Danny to fall in with, in the greater Tacoma area, unless one of the local gangs decided that having a kung-fu trained enforcer would give them a little class. But Mrs. Ryu’s argument was sound. After Colleen had dropped Mrs. Ryu off and then gone home, she sent Danny a text.

_Janitor @ my dojo quit. Could use someone to keep place clean. Will pay min wage. You and dog can sleep in break room._

Danny texted back: _YES!!! :D :D_

Colleen called Danny, who answered with a breathless “Hi, Colleen! Thank you so much! I’ll be the best janitor ever, I promise! You won’t regret this!”

“You’re welcome,” Colleen said dryly. “Okay, let’s hash out the details. Do you have a way to get to Lakewood?”

“I have a bus pass.”

“Good. I’m at the Chikara Dojo in the International District, across the street from Pal-Do World. Take the Three.”

“Okay,” Danny said. “Um, speaking of public transit, when I was downtown I asked a couple people where the subway station was and they looked at me funny. One person laughed! Is ‘subway station’ some kind of West Coast slang term?”

“Danny,” Colleen said, “You’ve seen how much rain we get around here during the winter. A subway tunnel would _flood_.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll pay you eleven bucks an hour,” Colleen said. “You can sleep on the couch in the break room and use the locker room showers if you clean up after yourself. You can use the microwave and electric kettle in the break room, but you have to buy your own food. Don’t turn the heat above seventy degrees, don’t keep the lights on in rooms you’re not using after hours, don’t do anything loud or obnoxious or potentially illegal that will make the neighbors complain, don’t smoke weed in the locker rooms, and don’t bring in people after hours without asking me. You can use the office computer, but stay away from porn sites and dodgy Russian file-sharing. Does that work for you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Danny said cheerfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scarred-up Canadian woman Colleen fights is none other than Wanda Winona Wilson, my AU genderbent Deadpool. You can read more about her in my stories "Shared Life Experiences" and "Sex, Drugs, and Sky Squid."


	4. Interlude: Constant Comment

To: SailorEuropa@hotmail.com

From: realdanielrand@gmail.com

Subject: I’m not dead!

Dear Joy,

It’s me, Danny! I know this is kind of hard to believe, but I didn’t die in that plane crash. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier but we landed up in the mountains out of cell phone range and the people who rescued me didn’t have internet or even a post office that could send letters internationally. But now I am back in the good old USA!

I’m sorry to hear that your dad died. I’m glad you and Ward have each other.

The internet said that Rand Enterprises moved to Seattle after the alien invasion. I’m in Tacoma now, maybe I could come up and visit when you and Ward aren’t too busy with business stuff. We have a lot to catch up on!

Your friend,

Danny Rand

 

February 10, 2016

Dear Joy,

I tried to send an email to your old address, but it bounced, and the Rand Enterprises website didn’t have your new email listed. So I had to do this the old fashioned way. I know you must get a lot of junk mail, but I really hope your assistant doesn’t throw this out!

It’s me, Danny Rand. I’m not dead! I know that sounds weird, but if Captain America can disappear for over sixty years and then come back, why can’t I? But I wasn’t frozen in an iceberg or anything like that. I just got rescued by some people who lived up in the mountains near where the plane crashed and went to live with them for fifteen years. It was a very isolated community, which is why I couldn’t call you or send you any letters. 

I’ve been studying kung fu for the past fifteen years. What have you and Ward been doing? We need to meet and catch up, and you can meet my dog. His name is Tenzing and he’s very smart. I have a job at a dojo in Koreatown in Lakewood. Have you ever had pho (pronounced “fuh” not “foe”) or Korean barbecue? It’s really good!

Colleen (she’s my boss) said that you might think I was a con artist after Rand Enterprises money and not believe me. So I guess I should explain a few things. I’m not asking for money, I have a job right now. And I remember things I’d only know if I knew you personally. You wanted to be a crime scene investigator but your dad thought it was a lower-class job. You like The Princess Bride but you wish there were more girls in it. You don’t like brown M&Ms. 

Did you guys get to see Lord of the Rings? I know you were both really looking forward to it, even if Ward didn’t like admitting he liked things because he was a teenager. I hope he grew out of that.

I’m sorry to hear about your dad dying.

Please write back, even if you and Ward don’t have time to talk to me in real life because you’re too busy with business stuff. My email is realdanielrand@gmail.com

Your friend,

Danny Rand

 

February 19, 2016

Dear Joy,

I sent you an email, but it bounced. I wrote you a letter more than a week ago, and I haven’t heard back yet. I tried to call your office and I got disconnected. I don’t know if you’re very busy or it didn’t get delivered right or someone at your office threw it out because they thought it was junk mail. So I dropped this off at your office myself so I know it arrived where it was supposed to be.

It’s Danny Rand, your long-lost friend! To make a long story short, I didn’t die in the plane crash, I was rescued by people who lived up in the mountains. But they didn’t have internet or long-distance phone service so I couldn’t tell people back in the USA that I wasn’t dead. Sorry about that.

I finally figured out how to take pictures on my phone and print them out on the computer, so here is a picture of what I look like now. I know I look a lot different now from how I did when I was ten, but maybe you could find that computer program they use to age up the pictures of missing people. Does it work in reverse?

I hope you and Ward are well. Why did you move the company to Seattle? It’s lucky for me that you did, because I don’t think I can afford a plane ticket from Lakewood to New York right now. Do you still like forensic science shows? Do you still not like brown M&Ms?

I am not asking for money and I’m not an imposter. See those fingerprints at the bottom of the page? Those are mine, you can check. (The office didn’t have fingerprinting ink so I used marker instead.) I’ll even do a DNA test if you want, but we’ll have to do that later. I figured you wouldn’t want to get somebody’s spit soaked cotton swab in the mail. That sounds unsanitary and kind of gross.

I missed you. Please write back. My email is realdanielrand@gmail.com.

Your friend,

Danny Rand


	5. Lady Grey

When Joy Meachum looked out at the scenery from the window of her office, she was often reminded of a line from a book one of her college professors had liked to quote about everything being so green green green it made the author feel bilious - when it wasn’t all so gray gray gray it just made her depressed. Joy hated Seattle, but the rain-sodden hipster hive had one compensation: its sheer bohemian banality kept away the worst of the socialites. _So help me,_ Joy thought, _If I have to hear Ivanka sound off about the Challenges of the Working Mother one more time…_

She was distracted from this unproductive train of thought by the unaccustomed sight of a couple of hand-addressed envelopes on her desk, attached to a Post-It that said “These arrived while you were in NY. Thought you’d want to see them - M.” Joy picked the letters up. Local return address - well, in-state at least. Joy didn’t know much about Washington geography outside the relatively civilized confines of the greater Seattle metropolitan area, and “Lakewood” could have been on the other side of the mountains for all she knew. And sent by someone claiming to be Danny Rand. _Interesting._

Joy opened the envelopes over the washroom sink so that any enclosed anthrax or glitter wouldn’t get all over her desk, but nothing fell out except a couple of letters hand-written on lined paper and a computer printout of a photo. The picture was an amateurish selfie of a young Asian guy with a scruffy stoner-beard and a big smile. He looked the right age to be Danny…

Joy called her train of thought to a halt. The young man was _not_ Danny, because Danny was _dead_. Maybe Captain America could go missing for sixty years and be none the worse for wear after he thawed out, but not normal people. Not her mother, not her father, and not the Rands. But some morbid fascination kept her from throwing the letters away unread.

Joy read through the first letter incredulously. If this guy was a con artist, he was a damn good one. The _Lord of the Rings_ reference could have been a lucky guess - a lot of people of their generation were fans of the movies. _The Princess Bride_ is popular. Had she ever mentioned her interest in forensic science on social media or in an interview? Joy didn’t remember. The brown M &Ms, though. He’d have had to talk to someone who knew their families or worked for the company before the plane crash to know _that_.

 _Or he could really be Danny_ , a treacherous stray thought suggested. Joy told that part of her brain to shut up and moved on to the next letter. More of the same - wait, he’d been to the company offices? That’s not stalkerish _at all_ \- and then a line of fingerprints and an offer to submit to a DNA test. Joy reconsidered the idea that this guy was a con artist. Maybe he was just delusional.

If the guy was lying, the fingerprints were a bold move. He must have assumed that Rand Enterprises wouldn’t have the fingerprints of a fifth grader who’d been presumed dead for fifteen years neatly filed away. _If he’s right, and the gamble pays off, he gets a lot of credibility just for being willing to go there. He’s wrong, his whole plan’s irreparably screwed._ _What would Dad have thought?_ Joy wondered. _Ballsy or just stupid?_

Then Joy remembered. _Do I still have it? I think I do… I took the whole box with me to Seattle, and I don’t remember throwing it out. I’ll have to check when I get home._ Joan wrote herself a reminder on her phone and put the letters in her purse, and found herself feeling slightly shaky with excited anticipation. Somehow, the prospect of being able to factually verify the whole ridiculous thing made it sink in the way the letters themselves hadn’t.

 _Okay, Joy, what are you going to do if the prints are a match?_ They wouldn’t be. The whole idea was ridiculous. Whatever ridiculous things people were getting up to in New York, _Joy_ did not live in a comic book. _But what if they are?_

 _We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it_ , Joy resolved. But it would be nice to have someone to talk to who wasn’t her weirdly-jumpy-and-secretive stoner brother. Joy just hoped that Danny - if this guy was Danny - wouldn’t expect too much of her help with his “legally becoming a living person again” business. Not that she would begrudge him, if it came to that, but Joy had enough on her plate.

As if at a signal, Joy heard the text alert on her phone. It was Ward. _We need to talk_ , it read. _You may have a stalker on your hands._

_Would this be a young Asian guy claiming to be Danny Rand by any chance?_ Joy texted back.

_Yes. How did you know?_

_I got his letters._

_Well he just tried to break into the lobby again. Security’s dealing with him._

_Don’t let them throw him out yet. I want to talk to him._

_WTF?_

_I’ll explain later._

Joy grabbed her purse - with the letters inside - and strode off briskly towards the elevator. She really hoped that this Danny Rand wannabe didn’t turn out to be some kind of violent lunatic - both because she didn’t want to get shot or stabbed, and she didn’t want to have to call the cops on the man before she learned what his deal was.

When Joy got on the elevator, she noticed it was already occupied by her brother - who looked like hell, held together with stubbornness and hair gel. But at least he didn’t smell like weed. Maybe he’d taken her advice and stuck to edibles during the workweek. “Ward,” Joy said gently, “Covering up your dark circles isn’t a bad idea, but use the right shade of concealer. And blend it in, for heaven’s sakes, that’s practically impasto.” Joy took her makeup kit out of her purse, and stood on her tiptoes to fix her brother’s under-eye situation. Ward stiffened up like a frightened deer when she touched him. _You shouldn’t smoke so much weed if it’s just going to make you paranoid_ , Joy thought.

“What do Italian hors d'oeuvres have to do with anything?” Ward asked.

“That’s antipasto. Impasto is a painting technique.” Joy looked at her brother, who seemed ever-so-slightly less on edge and was looking at her curiously. “I took an art history course for a humanities credit in college.”

Before Ward could reply, the elevator dropped them both off in the lobby. Joy and Ward turned the corner to see the guy from the letters and a very fluffy dog having some kind of standoff with two company security guards. The young man was unarmed and had his hands clearly visible, the dog was about the size of a large cocker spaniel and was wagging its tail, and the guards had their batons and tasers, but to Joy’s eyes the guards looked more nervous.

“What’s going on here?” Ward demanded, in the tone of voice he thought was authoritative but Joy privately believed made him sound like a pompous douchebag.

“He was trying to break into the building!” one of the guards said.

“Through the front door?” Ward said incredulously.

“The best way to break into some place is to pretend you belong there,” the other guard said. “It always works on _Leverage_. Sir.”

“Okay, who is this man and what did he _actually_ do?” Ward asked.

“Ward,” the young man said, “I’m _Danny_.”

“Let’s find somewhere we can sit down and talk about this,” Joy suggested. “Like the coffee bar or something.” Ward and the security guards looked dubious. “You two can come along if you really think it’s necessary,” Joy told the guards. So the whole procession - Meachum siblings, possible-undead-childhood-friend/possible-con-artist, security people, and cute dog - filed into the company coffee bar and sat down. “Everyone, feel free to get something to drink,” Joy said. “You too,” she told the guards. “Charge it to the company. I have the feeling this is going to be a long story.”

“Danny” got a cup of black tea, and Joy watched in slightly horrified fascination as he added a pat of butter and a pinch of salt, stirred it up, then sipped it and made a face. “It’s just not the same with American tea,” he said ruefully.

Despite her focus on “Danny,” Joy noticed that Ward and the dog were watching each other, with apparent mutual distrust. Ward had never really been an animal person, but she didn’t think he was afraid of oversize purse dogs.

“What is up with your dog?” Ward asked.

“His name’s Tenzing. He’s a K’un-Lun temple dog. They’re trained to sniff out evil spirits!”

“Why’s he looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know. Has anyone in the company been messing around with black magic?” “Danny’s” sweet, earnest expression didn’t crack, and Joy had no idea if he was joking or not.

“Okay, ‘Danny,’” Joy said. “We’re all here. We’re all listening. Now where the _hell_ have you been for the past fifteen years, and why did you come back _now_?”

“Danny” took a deep breath and slurped down some of his greasy salty tea. “Okay, this is going to sound pretty weird. Although not as weird as it would’ve sounded before aliens and Captain America getting defrosted and all that stuff. Do you guys remember when we all watched _Brigadoon_ , you know, the old musical?” Joy and Ward nodded. “It was kind of like that, but with kung fu.”

“What the fuck?” Ward said, and in that moment, Joy was in complete sympathy with her brother.

“Okay, K’un-Lun is in a kind of pocket dimension, and it only fully lines up with Earth every fifteen years. That’s the only time you can go back and forth physically.” “Danny” took a pen out of his pocket and drew a diagram on a couple of paper napkins. “The rest of the time you need portal magic, and that’s more of a sorcerer thing.”

“Of course,” Joy said.

“So it was really lucky for me that everything was lined up right when the plane crashed-” “Danny” got a faraway and kind of troubled look for a moment, before shaking his head and smiling again “-because ordinarily nobody lives that high in the mountains besides yetis, and most humans can’t survive in a yeti village. Too cold.”

“Wait - yetis are real?” Ward asked.

“Of course they are. They just keep to themselves.”

“So you didn’t let anyone know that you weren’t dead for fifteen years because you were in _another dimension_?” Joy asked.

“You got it!”

“What do you want with us now?” Ward asked bluntly.

“I thought you’d want to know I wasn’t dead,” Danny said - and at this point Joy was pretty sure that he really was Danny, even if she needed to check his fingerprints to make sure. “If either of you guys disappeared to go study at Hogwarts or something, _I’d_ want to know that _you_ weren’t dead.” Ward just looked confused.

_Poor guy_ , Joy thought. _Has he really forgotten how people work outside the corporate shark pool?_

“So what have you guys been doing?” Danny asked brightly. “Why’d you move to Seattle?” Ward fidgeted uneasily in his seat. “Was it the aliens?”

“Yes!” Ward said gratefully. “The aliens, and everything else. New York is just a little too interesting these days, you know what I mean? Anybody want a refill?”

“Yes, thanks,” Danny said. Ward hurried off toward the counter, and Danny turned to Joy and whispered, “Is he all right?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“Do you believe I am who I say I am now?” Danny asked.

“Mostly. I want to check your fingerprints, just to be completely sure.”

“No problem. Do you still have your forensics notebooks?”

“I should.”

Danny smiled at her, and Joy started to feel like she’d really got a friend back, not just had a puzzle dumped in her lap. And that was when Ward came back with Danny’s tea and Joy’s cappuccino.

When Ward set the tea down, Tenzing leapt up into Danny’s lap, sat up with his front paws on the table, and leaned over to sniff Danny’s drink. “Sorry, buddy,” Danny said. “No caffeine for puppies.” Danny picked the tea up out of Tenzing’s reach, and the dog jumped after it. “I don’t know why you want it so much,” Danny said. “I haven’t even put in the butter yet.” Tenzing settled down, let Danny set the tea down to put in the butter and salt without incident, but when Danny offered Tenzing the wrapper from the butter pat to lick, Tenzing pointedly ignored it and tipped over Danny’s cup of tea. “No! Bad dog! What’s gotten into you? That’s just tea, it is not haunted!” Danny scooped Tenzing up and put him back down on the floor, and Joy mopped up the spilled tea, while Ward watched with an unreadable expression. “Sorry, guys, he has never done this before.”

“Maybe he’s a tea snob,” Joy suggested. Danny chuckled and Ward cracked a half-smile.

“I think I’d better go,” Danny said. “Tenzing’s been good as long as he can stand. Can I have your email or something? I don’t want to have to come bug you at the office all the time. It’s a long trip.” Danny and Joy exchanged contact info - while Ward was conspicuously absorbed in his own espresso - and then Danny and Tenzing went their merry way, with the security guards watching discreetly to make sure he didn’t try any unauthorized sidequests on his way out.

“Okay, what was the deal with the tea?” Joy asked Ward, as soon as they were alone at their table.

“You wound me, sister. The dog was just acting funny, that’s all. That’s what dogs _do_.”

“Really?”

“Okay, I drugged the tea,” Ward admitted.

“Since when do you keep roofies around?” Joy asked, appalled.

“It was not ‘roofies,’ it was a sedative-hypnotic used for legitimate medical purposes, because I have _insomnia_ ,” Ward said tartly. “Don’t look at me like I’m some frat boy doping someone’s rum and coke at a party.”

“Can I ask why you decided to put your strictly medicinal sedatives in Danny’s tea?” Joy asked.

“So you believe it’s really him, then,” Ward said.

“The evidence seems to point that way,” Joy said. “But even if he’s an imposter, why did you want to drug him?”

“To buy us some time! If we could knock him out and let him cool his heels at Western State for 72 hours, we could figure out who this guy really is and what he really wants and what we should do about it!”

“Isn’t that overkill?” Joy said.

“Come on, Joy. You heard him. All that stuff about alternate dimensions and yetis and magic. Even if he really is Danny Rand, he could still be crazy.”

“Ward, when you’re as rich as we are, the correct term is ‘ _eccentric_.’”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Everything was so green, green, green it made me feel bilious" is a line from "The Egg And I" by Betty Macdonald.  
> Butter tea is a real beverage popular in the Himalayas. The actual process of making it is rather involved and sticking a butter pat in a cup of English breakfast would probably not be a satisfactory substitute at all.


	6. Dragon Well

Chikara Dojo didn’t have any classes that afternoon, so Colleen gave Danny time off to go bother some poor rich people up in Seattle. Colleen used the time to run errands. When she was at the printer’s to pick up a batch of new flyers, she suddenly felt, as sure as she knew her left hand from her right, that she was being watched. As far as she knew, Colleen was the only customer. That didn’t keep the force of her unseen watcher’s attention from prickling up and down her spine like spider legs. It took all of Colleen’s discipline to keep her focus on the transaction and not twirl around glowering suspiciously at everything in the shop. But once she left and let herself scan the parking lot of the shopping center, the only people she saw were a tall, athletic guy half-swaggering half-staggering into the liquor store and a goth girl leaving the pet shop.

Colleen was still a little rattled, so she was glad for the distraction when she got a call from Mrs. Ryu asking for help moving some boxes out of the attic.

“Thank you, Colleen,” Mrs. Ryu said, as she let Colleen in. “You’ve always been such a dutiful student. Unlike _some_ people,” she added darkly. “It’s a nasty wet day.” It was, but Mrs. Ryu looked pretty cheerful about it, as she always did when it rained. “Would you like some tea? I got a new oolong at Mad Hat that I think you’ll like.” Colleen accepted. 

Mrs. Ryu lived in a tiny turn of the century bungalow with wallpaper designed to look like Chinese embroidery, Persian rug pattern linoleum on the floor, crystal chandelier and paper lantern light fixtures, and a goldfish pond with a tiny bridge over it in the garden. She owned at least three curio cabinets to show off her collections of teaware, bobbleheads and Funko Pops, and antique weather instruments. When Colleen was a little girl, she’d thought it was the most beautiful house she’d ever seen. 

After the first tiny cups of tea - Colleen often wondered if brewing gong fu style really made the tea taste better or if people just liked using those cute little teapots - Mrs. Ryu asked “How’s your young man?”

 _He’s not **my** anything_ , Colleen thought, but she replied “Danny’s been all right. Although he’s trying to convince some of his old friends that he isn’t dead, delusional, or a con artist, and I don’t think that’s going very well.”

“People are so suspicious nowadays,” Mrs. Ryu tut-tutted. “Although I suppose they have reasons. The stories you hear!” She shook her head at the iniquity of the modern world. “How are things at the dojo?”

“Things are going pretty well,” Colleen said. “The repairs to the roof are holding, everybody this session paid their fees on time, and if nothing goes too terribly wrong we’ll actually turn a profit. And the Shogun of Hilltop’s trying to organize some kind of martial arts tournament and wants Chikara to participate.” 

“Will you?”

“Probably,” Colleen said. “I really should do more community outreach, and some of my advanced students are getting complacent. Going up against the Hilltop crowd might be just the thing to smack a little humility into them.”

The Shogunate of Hilltop - officially known as the Upper Tacoma Academy of International Martial Arts - was a product of the 1980s. A well-intentioned sensei had started offering martial arts classes to at-risk youth, which proved quite popular. If he didn’t entirely succeed in discouraging his pupils from solving their problems with violence, at least the turn from guns to fists was a lot less lethal. Then the sensei’s top student - a young wushu prodigy known as Martin Kurotatsu, the black dragon of Commencement Bay - developed a vigilante complex two decades before this would become fashionable on the East Coast and decided to kick the Bloods and the Crips out of his neighborhood. Which he did. (Literally, in some cases.)

This left the Shogunate unchallenged as the baddest badasses in Hilltop. Since their code of honor specifically forbade messing with anyone outside the _jianghu_ and they scared away the really dangerous people, this suited most of Hilltop’s civilian population fine. Kurotatsu succeeded as head of the dojo when his sensei retired, and the occasional kung-fu throwdowns in People’s Park became beloved local color with the additional bonus of scaring off the most squeamish gentrifiers. 

“Why does the Shogunate of Hilltop call itself that, anyway?” Colleen asked.

“Because the first generation of students were big fans of _The Last Dragon_ ,” Mrs. Ryu replied. “How do you like the tea?”

“It’s good,” Colleen said. She wondered if she should swirl it around her cup and do the wine-snob thing. “What did you want me to help with?”

“Just some old photos and memorabilia that have been sitting in the attic for too long. I wanted to get them sorted and put in proper storage before they all get mildewed.”

After Colleen brought down the boxes - dammit, why did paper have to be so heavy? - Mrs. Ryu asked her to stay and organize the contents. The first box Colleen opened was full of old showbiz memorabilia. There was a Chinese movie poster from the 1920s, a souvenir matchbook from a Shanghai nightclub, and several pictures of a pretty flapper chanteuse who went by “China Rose Long.” Miss Long looked a lot like the actress on the Chinese poster, come to think of it. And like Mrs. Ryu, for that matter. Was she a relative?

The last reference to China Rose Long was a postcard from a World War II USO show - not featuring Captain America, unfortunately - and Colleen really wanted to know this woman’s skincare secrets, because except for updating her hairstyle, she had not aged a day since the 1920s. But not a peep about her after the war. Colleen hoped that this woman she’d never met hadn’t died young. 

In the 1950s, the show business souvenirs gave way to martial arts: trophies and medals, dojo brochures and tournament posters and articles in local papers. And in a human interest article about women’s judo from a Hawaiian newspaper in 1956, Colleen saw her first mention of Mrs. Ryu. Or was it Mrs. Ryu? Same name, same features as far as Colleen could tell from that smudgy little photo, but Mrs. Ryu could not have been born before 1930 unless she had some serious Dorian Grey shit going on, and the woman in the picture didn’t look like any kind of twenty-something. But then, it was a smudgy little photo. _Maybe the photographer got her bad angle_ , Colleen thought.

But as Colleen traced her sensei’s career over the decades - the fifties in Hawaii, the sixties and seventies in California, the eighties in Oregon, and finally crossing the Columbia River in 1992 - she began to wonder if Mrs. Ryu did have some kind of Dorian Grey shit going on. Because she had apparently aged from “well preserved early forties” to “well preserved mid seventies” over the course of sixty years.

After she had the contents of the box set out in roughly chronological order, Colleen looked up to see Mrs. Ryu grinning at her like the very model of a twinkly-eyed yet enigmatic mentor. “You’re older than you let people think, aren’t you, sensei?” Colleen asked.

“Like I told you,” Mrs. Ryu said. “I drink green tea, I eat a lot of vegetables, and I do tai chi every morning.”

“Are you sure that’s it?” Colleen asked.

“What do you think, Colleen?”

“I think you have something else going on,” Colleen said. “And it isn’t ginseng or schizandra.” Mrs. Ryu smiled and nodded. “You’re clearly not a vampire,” Colleen continued. “You don’t have fangs or any problems with sunlight and religious artifacts. Definitely not a jiangshi. You still eat and breathe, so you’re not any other kind of undead, either. Again, no problem with sacred things, so you didn’t make a deal with the devil. I’m inclined to think Super Soldier Serum or Daoist alchemy.”

“I can’t fault your logic,” Mrs. Ryu said, amused. “But you’ve ignored a few options.”

“Are you a wizard or an alien?” Colleen asked.

“Now you’re just guessing,” Mrs. Ryu chided. “What did Sherlock Holmes say? ‘You see, but you do not observe.’ _Observe_ , Colleen.”

“Yes, sensei,” Colleen said, just the tiniest bit tartly. She closed her eyes, took a couple of steadying breaths, spread out her awareness, and then opened them. The room felt… different. 

It was the same room, with the same stuff in it, but somehow the colors of the birds and flowers on the wallpaper gleamed a little more richly. The atmosphere felt cooler and damper, although not unpleasantly so, with a faint whiff of seawater, petrichor, and sandalwood incense blending with the scents of old paper and tea. And washing over everything, Mrs. Ryu’s chi, stronger than Colleen had ever felt it. Colleen looked over at Mrs. Ryu, who smiled encouragingly. As she looked into those centuries-old eyes in that seventy-year-old face, Colleen wondered how she could have missed it for so long. Mrs. Ryu poured herself another cup of tea and lifted it to drink, her fingers curling around the delicate porcelain like graceful claws. As she raised her arm, the silk embroidery on her jacket caught the light like shining scales. “Fuck me,” Colleen said, “you’re a dragon.”

“ _Language_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jianghu is a term from wuxia fiction, the world of martial artists and outlaws. I believe it's translated as the "Pugilist World" in some media.  
> "The Last Dragon", also known as "Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon" is a cult classic martial arts movie from the 1980s. One of the antagonists calls himself the Shogun of Harlem.


End file.
